/Graveyard/Collect Africa

Collect Africa

Simplify payments for SMEs

Epitaph

“Here lies Collect Africa. For four years it let Nigerian SMEs collect payments across transfers, POS, QR codes and links from one dashboard. Its founders found a bigger bet in stablecoins and closed it on purpose, redirecting every hand to Autospend.”

Overview

Born: 2021 (Year)
Died: August 2025 (Month)
Lifespan: 5 years
Fate: Sunset by its owner
Headquarters: 🇳🇬 Nigeria
Category: Fintech
Stage at death: Pre-seed
Primary cause: Acquisition or strategy change
Contributing causes: Business model or unit economics

Death certificate

Timeline

2021Collect Africa founded
Abraham Ojes and Wale Martins launch a merchant payments dashboard for African SMEs
January 2025Autospend launched
Founders launch a new stablecoin-focused payments platform alongside Collect Africa
31 August 2025Collect Africa shuts down
Company ceases operations to focus fully on Autospend

Autopsy report

Why did Collect Africa shut down?

Collect Africa, a Nigerian payments platform for SMEs, shut down on August 31, 2025 after four years of operation. This was framed as a deliberate strategic pivot rather than a failure: founders Abraham Ojes and Wale Martins redirected the team fully to their new stablecoin-based platform, Autospend, which had already launched in early 2025.

What Collect Africa attempted

A single-dashboard payments platform letting Nigerian SMEs accept bank transfers, POS, QR codes, payment links and direct debits.

What worked

Processed over $4 million in payments across 50,000+ transactions for roughly 5,000 registered businesses, with about $5,000 in monthly revenue and 25% annual growth, funded by $125,000 from ODX and $10,000 from GreenHouse Lab.

What happened

After four years building Collect Africa, the founders identified a larger opportunity in stablecoin-based cross-border money movement, launched Autospend in early 2025, and ultimately shut down Collect Africa on August 31, 2025 to focus resources entirely on the new venture.

Lessons for future builders

A working, profitable product can still be the wrong place for your team's next few years. When a larger opportunity is genuinely clear, concentrate people and capital on one bet rather than splitting focus across a small business and a new venture.